Paystack doesn’t work with Substack. I checked a while back. Right now I am seeking a viable alternative to Substack, but so far haven’t found anything.
Thank you for this, Sonja. Though this is a bit of a relief for me, as I feared I might have done all of this additional work for nothing, it does mean it is a pain for South Africans hoping to include a paid subscription on their Substack.
Found you by Googling "does Paystack integrate with Substack." Thank you for laying out what it takes to accept payments. Definitely a rig-amarole. Many folks here on Substack are looking to monetize and can't; your post proved even if you can, it's challenging and expensive. But, I'm glad it was worth it for you!
I was wondering how you were accepting Substack payments in South Africa, so thanks for sharing your experience with Stripe Atlas, Johan. Having hit up against the "no Stripe in SA" issue for many years, I've considered Stripe Atlas, but it scares me deeply because of the tax implications, the time spent on admin & compliance, and the high fees -- probably in that order!
A possible workaround for us South African writers and creators who want to use Substack could be the following:
- Create a free Substack Publication (to leverage Substack's reach and build your list)
- Create a second Substack Publication and set it to Private Mode (in Settings). This will be your paid publication.
- Create a payment page in a processor like Paystack (for ZAR and African payments) and/or PayPal (for USD and global payments).
- In your free content, include a Call-to-Action for people to sign up for your paid newsletter. They click through to your Paystack/PayPal page and pay you.
- When you receive that payment notification, you add them to your paid/private Substack Publication list. (I reckon you could automate this with tools like Zapier when you have hundreds of subscribers flowing in each day! ;)
Not a perfect solution by any means, and I should say that I haven't tested this exact workflow. However, after spending the last hour researching, I felt I had to share. The other option is to look at Ghost, which accepts PayPal... But we want to use Substack! Wouldn't it be cool to have more South African voices on Substack? And wouldn't it be even cooler if we could get some financial reward for our efforts, just like our global friends?
I joined here last week and I have to say that I am not sure this platform is going to do anything for us Saffers. What I am noticing is that newbies who are based in the 1st world countries are joining and immediately finding interactions. So far only the people I have invited are sub'd and all my posts uploaded are free. As a former programmer I have to surmise that we are not being included in the algorithm and are probably never going to get the kind of audience we are looking for. :-(
Thanks for this info, Johan! I'm just starting out on Substack and all the advice online says to set up paid subscriptions from the get-go. There's no way I can manage the additional fees of going the US route without a bigger following - such a pity. The only other "workaround" I've seen suggested is to have a link to BuyMeaCoffee at the end of each post and hope people are keen to support that way, but that platform is also linked with Stripe.
Johan, I'm guessing the picture (you offering readers a typewriter?) means you're suggesting we'd all be happier if we could go back to pre-computer, pre-internet days?
Paystack doesn’t work with Substack. I checked a while back. Right now I am seeking a viable alternative to Substack, but so far haven’t found anything.
Thank you for this, Sonja. Though this is a bit of a relief for me, as I feared I might have done all of this additional work for nothing, it does mean it is a pain for South Africans hoping to include a paid subscription on their Substack.
Found you by Googling "does Paystack integrate with Substack." Thank you for laying out what it takes to accept payments. Definitely a rig-amarole. Many folks here on Substack are looking to monetize and can't; your post proved even if you can, it's challenging and expensive. But, I'm glad it was worth it for you!
Thank you for the kind message, Emily. And good luck!
Thanks for this Johan. I thought of starting one next year, but now I can see it is no small amount of work.
I was wondering how you were accepting Substack payments in South Africa, so thanks for sharing your experience with Stripe Atlas, Johan. Having hit up against the "no Stripe in SA" issue for many years, I've considered Stripe Atlas, but it scares me deeply because of the tax implications, the time spent on admin & compliance, and the high fees -- probably in that order!
A possible workaround for us South African writers and creators who want to use Substack could be the following:
- Create a free Substack Publication (to leverage Substack's reach and build your list)
- Create a second Substack Publication and set it to Private Mode (in Settings). This will be your paid publication.
- Create a payment page in a processor like Paystack (for ZAR and African payments) and/or PayPal (for USD and global payments).
- In your free content, include a Call-to-Action for people to sign up for your paid newsletter. They click through to your Paystack/PayPal page and pay you.
- When you receive that payment notification, you add them to your paid/private Substack Publication list. (I reckon you could automate this with tools like Zapier when you have hundreds of subscribers flowing in each day! ;)
Not a perfect solution by any means, and I should say that I haven't tested this exact workflow. However, after spending the last hour researching, I felt I had to share. The other option is to look at Ghost, which accepts PayPal... But we want to use Substack! Wouldn't it be cool to have more South African voices on Substack? And wouldn't it be even cooler if we could get some financial reward for our efforts, just like our global friends?
I joined here last week and I have to say that I am not sure this platform is going to do anything for us Saffers. What I am noticing is that newbies who are based in the 1st world countries are joining and immediately finding interactions. So far only the people I have invited are sub'd and all my posts uploaded are free. As a former programmer I have to surmise that we are not being included in the algorithm and are probably never going to get the kind of audience we are looking for. :-(
Thanks for this info, Johan! I'm just starting out on Substack and all the advice online says to set up paid subscriptions from the get-go. There's no way I can manage the additional fees of going the US route without a bigger following - such a pity. The only other "workaround" I've seen suggested is to have a link to BuyMeaCoffee at the end of each post and hope people are keen to support that way, but that platform is also linked with Stripe.
Ja, dis mal. Ek dink ek sal maar net ‘n Leser bly en die skryfwerk los vir die Skrywers.
Johan, I'm guessing the picture (you offering readers a typewriter?) means you're suggesting we'd all be happier if we could go back to pre-computer, pre-internet days?